Snakepit by Moses Isegawa Page B

with energy, his legs trembling. There was little else to do and he felt he had seen enough of his host’s ostentatious home. He wanted to get away and enjoy some solitude. There was a state dinner in the evening, a prospect he did not look forward to with any sense of joy.
    â€œHow will the other prince take the loss?” he asked resignedly.
    â€œDon’t worry about him,” his host said, smiling smugly. “I will straighten him out myself. It has always been like that. It would be good though to hire a bodyguard back home.”
    â€œI intend to hire ten,” Bat said to hide his unease.
    â€œI would not worry if I were you. Everything is under control.”
    Bat decided to make no further inquiries. What was the use? The deed had already been done. It was better to accept and if possible enjoy it. Suddenly, he was aware of a beautiful floating sensation, as if he were sitting on a very fast motorcycle. He also experienced the transparency of guilt, as if his secret were ringing bells. More than ever he became aware that great fortunes were made and lost in Africa. It was the biblical land where riches got eaten by locusts. The present did not last, the future got rancid before you touched it, blighted by the looming past: the stultification of slavery, the humiliation of colonialism, the debilitation of neo-colonialism, the raging war between capitalism and communism. The colonials, the Asians, the royals, the dictators, had all tasted the bitter truth. Amin and his cohorts knew it; they had their luggage ready. What will be my fate? Bat wondered.
    After his return Bat met General Bazooka and handed him the briefcases stuffed with dollars and briefed him about the details of the deal. Separated by the vastness of a mahogany bureau on which stood the Ugandan flag, a battery of golden Parker pens, three telephones and in whose drawers were guns and bullet clips, Bat looked like a junior teacher reporting to the headmaster. There were enough guns in the General’s office to arm a hundred soldiers, and Bat felt that they were trained on him, ready to go off. The General nodded up and down with his handsome face, like a blue gecko sunning itself on a rock, appreciating the windfall, happy that his stash of dollars was going to increase spectacularly. There was a growing dearth of foreign exchange in the country, and anybody with dollars in cash was in a very privileged position. Now and then, the corners of the General’s mouth pointed downwards and, in harmony with the continuous up-and-down nodding motion, created an expression of supreme smugness of the school of “I am the king of this hill and there is nothing anybody can do about it.” The General, who had only recently put down a rebellion in the army, needed this cash reward to augment his sense of self-importance as a counter-measure to the humiliation he had suffered at the hands of Robert Ashes. As long as the General kept nodding with satisfaction, Bat knew that the rival prince had not sought his revenge by informing the General about his brother’s tactics and Bat’s role in the drama. The General was not very interested in the technical details, and Bat could see that whenever he started in that direction his boss stopped nodding. After half an hour of explanations Bat stood up to go, leaving behind the briefcases.
    Bat’s anxiety expressed itself in his increased intake of alcohol. He also tried to steady his nerves by thinking about Babit who, when he really came to think of it, would not be able to help him if things came to a head. But the knowledge that she would be there for him calmed him. In the end, his conscience would not leave him alone. It fertilized his imagination with all kinds of threats: abduction, imprisonment, torture, blackmail. If he walked to his car and heard somebody coming behind him, he would stop, turn around and see who it was. If a car followed him on the road and he could not